Some of the most impressive post-war American cars came not from Detroit, but from West Palm Beach, Florida, where Briggs Cunningham built both his race and his street cars, the latter produced just as an excuse to continue building the former.

But what if Cunningham had made more of an effort to actually produce a profit from his civilian enterprise and thus keep the company alive for a few years more? Certainly Briggs would have kept racing and developing his competition cars, but perhaps he might have expanded the civilian offerings, maybe by offering a sedan.

Blasphemy? Imagination run wild? I would have said so too before coming across the above photo of a Vignale rendering of a Cunningham sedan. Allegedly, famed car reviewer Tom McCahill snapped the shot when left alone for a moment in the office of Alfredo Vignale, whose company built the civilian Cunningham C3 coupe. McCahill intimated that the rendering was not commissioned by Briggs Cunningham, rather an attempt by Vignale to convince Cunningham to build it. In typical McCahill fashion, though, swashbuckling drama took precedent over actual journalism, and we learned nothing more of the rendering from him.

One Response to “Cunningham planned a sedan?”

It was common practice for Italian coachbuilders in the ’50′s to do unsolicited renderings (and the occasional build) on speculation of getting a commission for a special model. This design is very cool; it is unfortunate that it never came to life.